Review — A Legend in the Making

There is something mythical about 1939. It was a year when the rumblings of war in Europe grew louder while Einstein warned Roosevelt that the Nazis were getting closer to developing an atomic weapon. While this was going on, Americans were doing there best to ignore the coming storm by escaping to the New York World’s Fair and with films like Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

When it comes to baseball, 1939 was also a landmark year. Aside from being the questionable centennial of the national game, it marked the debut of Ted Williams, the opening of the Hall of Fame and the sad demise of Lou Gehrig’s career.

It is the year, also, that arguably sets the Yankees apart as the greatest team of all time. They won 106 games, while losing just 45 to finish 17 games ahead of the second place Red Sox. They capped their run by sweeping the Reds in the World Series.

Richard Tofel relives the team’s juggernaut run through the baseball world with a combination of concise reportage and historical perspective.

Without going into laborious detail and statistical meanderings, Tofel replays that special season, reminding the reader that teams are not composed merely of star players, but also of average fellows who have their good days and bad. (Even the Erle “Doc” Painter, the Yankees’ trainer, gets his due, though not in a complimentary light, but such was the case of that position in those days). In the case of the 1939 team, of course, there were more ups on the field then downs.

The major underlying story of Legend, however, takes place outside the white lines. The author uses anecdotal information as well as impressions of teammates and Eleanor Gehrig to impart the decline of the once-awesome Lou due not to the aging process, but by something much more insidious.

As the 1939 season eased from spring training to regular play, the sportswriters who covered the Yankees noticed a sharp dropoff in ability from the Yankee first-baseman, carried over from the 1938 season. Tofel argues, correctly, that the falloff is relative only to Gehrig’s great seasons. His numbers, a .295 batting average, 29 home runs and 114, RBI, still place him in above average. While some attributed it to the wear and tear of playing over 2,100 consecutive games, others, perhaps more sharp-eyed and sensitive, worried that there was something more to it. Teammates, in the typical unenlightened manner of youth and selfishness, complained that Gehrig’s faulty play put them at risk. It was only after tests at the Mayo Clinic confirmed the worst that they sheepishly came around.

The question posed (but not adequately answered) by Tofel is how much did Gehrig understand about his fate. Some sources have indicated that the Iron Horse was not the brightest of men and doctors kept the ultimate diagnosis from him. Others claim he was keeping up a brave front to protect his family. Either way, the tribute according him on that July 4, at which he claimed to be the “luckiest man on the face of the earth,” ranks as one of the most moving in sports history.

Tofel knows that the Yankees did not operate in a vacuum and reports on some of the other doings both in and outside baseball. For example, America was at the height of the Depression, with millions out of work. Here he uses his background as a vice president of Dow Jones & Company to put into meaningful and relative terms the salary structure of the day. Old timers complain about their inadequate salaries but Tofel shows that while the amounts might seem small, they were actually well above most blue collar workers of the era and quite good in current dollars. On the other hand, he appears too cavalier when he notes “The Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The next day the Yankees rolled into Boston, their train three hours late from Cleveland.” But it may be his sly way of indicating the minimal impact the beginnings of World War II had on America.

Within the game, he notes the increasing impact of night games and radio broadcasts in the baseball landscape.

Legend concludes with a “Post-Game Report” which follows the fates of the team following 1939, led, understandably, by Gehrig’s death in 1941. Tofel also begs the question was this team truly the greatest ever? The reader will have to decide that answer.

Review — New Respect for Baseball Titles

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>This review appeared in <em>ForeWord Magazine</em>, May/June 2003.</span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Ever since academicians and historians such as Harold Seymour, David Q. Voigt, and Jules Tygiel began to make &quot;serious&quot; examinations of the national p</span><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=211,height=300,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/0786412720.jpg”><span style=”color: #000000;”><img title=”0786412720″ height=”213″ alt=”0786412720″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/0786412720.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></span></a><span style=”color: #000000;”>astime, baseball has received a newfound respect from a new generation of readers. Heretofore, sports books were relegated almost exclusively to juvenile literature with heroes like Babe Ruth or Dizzy Dean overcoming adversity to attain stardom. Through the writings of Seymour and company, we see now that baseball is much more than just an athletic endeavor. It is a microcosm of life, its impact spanning numerous disciplines. Sociology, economics, music, and the media are but a few of the subcategories that baseball touches.</span></p>

<p><a href=”http://www.forewordmagazine.net/articles/printarticles.aspx?articleid=21″><span style=”color: #000000;”>Read the full review from <em>ForeWord Magazine</em></span></a><span style=”color: #000000;”>.</span></p>

<p></p>

Author Profile: Stanley Teitelbaum

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=450,height=700,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/heroesidolsspt.jpg”><span style=”color: #000000;”><img title=”Heroesidolsspt” height=”233″ alt=”Heroesidolsspt” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/heroesidolsspt.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></span></a><span style=”color: #000000;”> </span><span style=”color: #000000;”><strong>The mighty have fallen:<br />Examining hero worship in the steroids era</strong> </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>A version of this article originally appeared in <em>New Jersey Jewish News</em>, May 18, 2006 </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Barry Bonds, the taciturn slugger for the San Francisco Giants, stands ready to move past Babe Ruth into second place on the all-time home run list, the occasion is absent the hoopla expected for such a historic event. </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>With 713 homers (at the time this article went to press), he sits one behind the mighty Babe and 42 behind Hank Aaron, who broke the Bambino’s record 38 years ago to set the current standard. </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Amid allegations of steroid use, fans outside northern California have been assaulting him with boos and signs decrying him as a cheater, which, at least outwardly, doesn’t affect Bonds in the least. </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>According to Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum, a practicing psychotherapist and faculty member and senior supervisor at the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University/Madison, Bonds is a perfect fit for the “toxic athlete profile.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Teitelbaum, who also serves on the faculty of the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and the Training Institute for Mental Health, both in New York, cites scores of similar examples in his book <em>Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols: How Star Athletes Pursue Self-Destructive Paths and Jeopardize Their Careers </em>(University of Nebraska Press). </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>“Bonds is an interesting figure,” he says. “There are a lot of different feelings about him. There’s a ‘sleaze factor.’ He’s the quintessential example of the toxic athlete, displaying characteristics including entitlement, arrogance, and grandiosity. He does it time and time again.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Teitelbaum is more forgiving than most, blaming at least a part of the obsession with Bonds on the media. “When I was a young kid, we got all our sports information through the radio and newspaper,” he said. Television and the Internet have changed reporting methods, often pushing sports items to higher, and undeserved, prominence. </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>The Teaneck resident grew up in the shadow of Ebbets Field in Brooklyn; his boyhood hero was Pete Reiser because of “his drive, his determination, his win-at- all-costs, devil-may-care attitude.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>“Now it’s all about the pocketbook. Ruth himself was no choirboy, but you would never hear about his indiscretions through the press. “There was a gentlemen’s agreement among writers and athletes,” in those days, Teitelbaum says. Now, “the media has such a powerful influence and can either guide you up or devil you down.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>The turning point in sports coverage came in 1985, when several athletes testified at the trial of a Philadelphia Phillies caterer who was found guilty of distributing cocaine to major league ballplayers, setting off a new chorus of “Say it ain’t so” headlines. </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>More recently, the House of Representatives held hearings on steroid use in baseball in 2005, hearing from such prominent players as Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and Raphael Palmeiro, among others. Bonds did not appear at the hearing but has long been suspected of using performance enhancing drugs. </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>“The media have really done him in,” Teitelbaum says. “It’s payback because he treats them so shabbily. They highlight his flaws to an extreme, probably more than is actually warranted.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Bonds’ statistics, especially those since 1998, when his use of steroids allegedly began, will be viewed by future generations with skepticism. “It raises questions. What he has accomplished is probably influenced by steroids.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Despite the controversy, Teitelbaum believes Bonds will ultimately wind up in baseball’s Hall of Fame, sending a mixed message to young fans. Athletes are role models, he writes in his book, whether they want to be or not. “It’s part of the job. People watch how they conduct themselves on and off the field. All indiscretions are going to be in the headlines now.” That may be an unfair burden to lay on a group who are barely adults themselves, but “that goes with the territory,” he says. “It’s not such a high price to pay for all the money, fame, and adulation these athletes receive.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Fans have a degree of culpability, too, he says. Anxious to “bask in reflected glory of their favorites,” the majority would rather have winners who bend the rules than clean-cut losers. By using steroids, athletes create a negative role model, setting a bad precedent for the kids who identify with them and indirectly encouraging them to use drugs in an attempt to improve their own athletic abilities. In addition, substantial medical evidence indicates long-term health dangers to users. Finally, and perhaps most important, says Teitelbaum, “it’s about fairness. If some players are ‘juicing’ while others are not, it tarnishes the sense of fair play.” </span></p>

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>He disagrees with the famous quote from legendary football coach Vince Lombardi. “Winning <em>isn’t </em>everything. There are some things that come above winning. We see that when there’s a national crisis. Baseball was suspended after 9/11, and that was the right thing to do.” </span></p>

Review — The Journal of Biddy Owens

<p>This review appeared in <em>BookPage</em>, May 2001. </p>

<p>To watch our children playing together nowadays, it’s difficult to conceive of a <a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=318,height=475,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/owens_1.jpg”><img title=”Owens_1″ height=”224″ alt=”Owens_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/owens_1.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> time when it was taboo for blacks and whites to join in a game of baseball. Yet 50 years ago (and, sadly, even more recently) such was the case.</p>

<p><em>The Journal of Biddy Owens</em> is a fictional story of a 17-year-old African American who serves as batboy for the Birmingham Black Barons, one of the legendary teams in the defunct Negro Leagues. These athletes, denied the chance to play in the Major Leagues (until Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947), included some of the greatest players of all time, regardless of color, like Satchel Paige, Buck Leonard and Willie Mays. </p>

<p>Owens keeps track of the excitement of the season, the fans, the personalities. Although his team is bound for the championship, it’s not all fun and games. For one thing, there is the pervasive racism he and his teammates must endure as they travel from town to town for the next game: separate drinking fountains, separate cars on trains. The humiliation and danger they faced on a regular basis is a shock to today’s modern sensibilities. </p>

<p><em>Journal </em>is also a story of the difficulties in the Owens’ household. When World War II ended, blacks faced the brunt of layoffs at work as those who had been in the service returned to reclaim their former jobs. As a teenager, is caught between the end of childhood and the beginnings of being a man. </p>

<p>The target age group for the book is 9-14, hopefully old enough to understand the degradations of racism, as it applies to any group. The book is part of the &quot;My Name Is America&quot; series, which &quot;journals&quot; history from the perspective of a Japanese boy in an internment camp during World War II, a Chinese miner and a Native American, as well as immigrants from Ireland and Finland. As if to show the price of keeping America free, stories are also offered by soldiers in the Revolutionary, Civil and Second World Wars. </p>

<p>All in all, the series proves that what makes this country great is its ability to recognize and work toward solving these difficulties. </p>

Author Profile: Rabbi Byron Sherwin

<p><strong>Still waiting for that miracle: Chicago rabbi combines Kabala and Cubs in novel </strong></p>

<p>For the 98th straight year, the Chicago Cubs missed out on a chance to win a world championship. The team finished last in the National League Central Division, their manager was fired, and the front office is once again embarking on a “rebuilding effort,” sports jargon for “It’ll take a few more years until we’re competitive again.”</p>

<p><a href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/photos/uncategorized/sherwin_1.jpg”><img title=”Sherwin_1″ height=”137″ alt=”Sherwin_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/sherwin_1.jpg” width=”100″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /></a> Picking up on the pain and suffering of Cubs’ followers — among whom is his own wife — Rabbi Byron Sherwin sought to invoke Kabala to give the faltering ball club a leg up. For Sherwin, author of 25 scholarly books and over 150 monographs and articles, <em>The Cubs and the Kabbalist: How a Kabbalah-Master Helped the Chicago Cubs Win Their First World Series Since 1908</em> (West Oak Press) represents his first foray into fiction. The tale’s hero, a rabbi and expert in Kabala, amazingly enough, conjures up spells and a golem to help the team win and his baseball-crazy wife get over her obsession. </p>

<p>Although fiction, aspects of the story do parallel Sherwin’s life. “My wife liked her ‘portrayal’ in the novel. She is a fanatic Cubs fan and an attorney. However, she understands that it is a novel, which means it is not a biography,” Sherwin wrote in an e-mail interview. </p>

<p>The idea for the book had its genesis during a seder. “My wife would constantly leave the table. We would hear yelling, shouting, banging, and the sound of things being thrown around in the kitchen. We thought that the dinner hadn’t come out too well. But what was actually happening was that she was going inside to see how the Cubs were doing, which was badly, as usual. </p>

<p>“A physician friend of ours began to express concern. I told him that the cause of all the ruckus was that my wife was watching the ball game. Half in jest he said, ‘I know of no medical treatment for this condition. You’ve studied Kabala for a long time. Maybe there’s some kabalistic magic you could use….’ That was the seed that became the book.” </p>

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=179,height=271,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/cubskabala_2.jpg”><img title=”Cubskabala_2″ height=”227″ alt=”Cubskabala_2″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/cubskabala_2.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a>Sherwin said he wrote the book for several audiences. “I explain a lot about Jewish rituals and practices, which are quite elementary, but both Jews and non-Jews who have read the book have told me that they learned much about Judaism in a ‘painless’ way. The same may be true of readers who don’t know very much about baseball.” </p>

<p>He followed the New York Giants as a youngster, but when the team abandoned the East Coast, along with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he lost interest in baseball. “Somehow I feel the quality and sportsmanship of the game has deteriorated since then. </p>

<p>“Over the long run — now almost a century — I see no other explanation than that [the Cubs] are cursed, and that the curse needs to be removed. After all, when Babe Ruth’s family lifted the ‘Curse of the Bambino,’ the Red Sox won the World Series.” Indeed, with that Sox championship in 2004, the Cubs are now the poster team for postseason futility and fan disappointment. </p>

<p>But what if, by some miracle, the real Cubs had managed to get into the postseason? “If the team had won the Central division, the pennant, and the World Series this year, one could expect that the Messiah would not be far behind,” Sherwin joked. “I was not at all worried about that happening and hurting book sales. </p>

<p>“If the book has encouraged its readers to learn more about Judaism and also about Kabala, [it] has served its purpose.” </p>

<p><align=”right”></align=”right”>This article appeared in the <em>New Jersey Jewish News</em>, Oct. 19, 2006</p>

Review — Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems

Appeared in ForeWord Magazine, May/June 2002.

The sub-genre of baseball-related poetry is probably one of the most under-appreciated in the great tradition of poetry and literature. “No matter how good a baseball poem is,” the editors write in the introduction, “some will always feel that baseball as subject matter relegates a poem to also-ran status.” Brooke Horvath is a professor of English at Kent State University; Tiim Wiles is director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Read the full review from ForeWordMagazine.com.

Author Profile: Steve Goldman

 

Steve Goldman was only four years old when Casey Stengel, manager of the New York Yankees juggernaut for more than a decade, died in 1975. So where does the fascination come from that Goldman would devote 10 years to write the latest biography of the cagey Casey?

For Yankee fans of a certain age, Stengel is synonymous with baseball genius, an Einstein of the diamond. During his stewardship (1949-1960), the Bronx Bombers of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Billy Martin and company appeared in 10 World Series, winning eight of them, including five in a row from 1949-1953, a mark of excellence that still stands.

In a telephone interview, Goldman explained why his book, Forging Genius: The Making of Casey Stengel (Potomac Books), is different from all previous profiles.

Earlier offerings cover Stengel ’s entire playing and managing career, he noted, but tend to rush through those seasons, wanting to get to the meatier material on the Yankees and Mets. “That does him a disservice because you don’t get to figure out how he got to be Casey Stengel,” he said. “Casey is iconic. He’s not just a baseball figure, but seeped out into general culture….He can be found anywhere from the Smithsonian to Bartlett ’s Familiar Quotations.”

There are so many reasons why he’s interesting, Goldman maintained. “On an emotional level, I was just fascinated by the dichotomy of his personality, because he was someone who was clearly very intelligent and created a lot of innovations, yet at the same time … had a very goofy, sometimes almost surreal sense of humor. People couldn’t really accept that, that someone could be a competitor and a comedian at the same time.”

Goldman chronicles Stengel’s career only up to 1949, his first season with the Yankees. Before that he had less successful stints with the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers. Not all of that was his fault, said Goldman.

Unlike the Yankees, those teams were constantly teetering on bankruptcy, unable to trade for or buy the players that would make them winners. Those assignments furthered embellished his reputation as a colorful character.

“He was being funny when he was losing, and people think you should be suffering when you’re losing,” Goldman assessed. “He just suffered internally and said funny things.”

Goldman, who graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in history, resides in East Brunswick with his wife, Dr. Stefanie Goldman, a chemist, and their four-year-old daughter, Sarah (the couple is expecting another child shortly).

 

Baseball was a rougher game in those days before political correctness in vogue. Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in major league baseball only two years before Stengel took over the Yankees. Hank Greenberg, baseball’s first Jewish superstar, was the target of vicious anti-Semitic barbs from fans and opponents (and sometimes his own teammates). “I have never heard a single anecdote, or in the vast vast literature on Casey Stengel, seen a single reference to him having any problems with Jewish players. He played guys he thought would help win,” although Goldman noted that because of his age and Midwest roots, “I think he had less of a resistance to using language that we would be appalled by today.” It was, Goldman pointed out, the culture of the time” (Harry Eisenstat, a pitcher with the Dodgers in the late 1930s, was Stengel’s only Jewish player).

There’s another reason for Goldman’s attachment to Stengel. “On a personal level, I identified with what he went through. I was always the kids in school who was told by my teachers that I was going to be a failure in life, that I didn’t take things seriously enough.”

 

Steven Goldman’s suggested reading, for new fans and old.

• For those just getting into the game:

The Baseball Prospectus by the authors of Baseball Prospectus. “I came to baseball at a relatively late age and learned everything from the yearly Bill James Baseball Abstract. That series is over, but the BP annuals are the closest thing going. Smart, funny writing by smart, funny guys (fair disclosure: I’m one of the authors).”

The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, by Bill James. “The proofreader apparently took the day off, but you can still learn something new about the appeal of the game by opening to any given page.”

Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, by Robert Creamer. “A well-written, compact biography of the player who brought the game, fans, and the media together.”

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis. “Forget the controversy the book inspired; it’s fun to go back stage and see what these guys are thinking (or not thinking) when they build their teams.”

The Glory of Their Times, by Lawrence Ritter. “The original oral history. Players speak in their own voices of what it was like to play at the beginning of the 20th century.”

 

• For more sophisticated fans, again in no particular order:

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc: J. Henry Waugh, Prop., by Robert Coover. “The only novel on this list. Despite what Einstein said, if you’re too invested in a tabletop baseball game, then god does play dice with the universe.”

Veeck as in Wreck, by Bill Veeck. “Basically Moneyball for the 1950s, written by a true maverick, the owner of the Indians, White Sox, and Browns.”

Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, by Satchel Paige. “A rollicking, picaresque autobiography by a man who might have been the greatest pitcher of all time.”

The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, by Jonathan Fraser Light. “Newly updated, this massive book is an indispensable reference touching on almost every aspect of the game.”

Nice Guys Finish Last, by Leo Durocher. “One of the game’s most controversial managers tells his version of his life. Some of it is true, some of it is better. All of it is fascinating.”

Review — Yankees, Red Sox books

<p>Appeared on Bookreporter.com in 2005</p>

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=476,height=695,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/faithful.jpg”><img title=”Faithful” height=”219″ alt=”Faithful” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/faithful.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> Michael Kun, co-author of <em>The Baseball Uncyclopedia</em>, made a particularly astute observation about the state of baseball literature over the last few years. Go into a bookstore, he writes, and you will find more often than not:<br />&quot;Books about the Yankees.<br />Books about the Red Sox.<br />Books about the Yankees <em>and</em> the Red Sox.<br />Books about players who played for the Yankees.<br />Books about players who played for the Red Sox.<br />Books about players who played for the Yankees <em>and</em> the Red Sox.<br />And, depending upon where you live, a book or two about your local team.&quot;<br /><br />It’s not much of an exaggeration. Following their first World’s Championship in almost 90 years, more than a dozen titles acknowledging the Boston Red Sox’s accomplishment hit the shelves.</p>

<p>Read the two-part review from Bookreporter.com.</p>

<p><a href=”http://bookreporter.com/features/050422-baseball.asp”>Part 1</a></p>

<p><a href=”http://bookreporter.com/features/050527-baseball.asp”>Part 2</a></p>

<p></p>

Review — Baseball Roundup, Fall ‘06

<p>Apperaed on BookReporter.com, Oct. 20, 2006<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/sibbbook_1.jpg”><img title=”Sibbbook_1″ height=”150″ alt=”Sibbbook_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/sibbbook_1.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a><em> </em></p>

<p>&quot;Baseball books are divided into several subgenres: team histories, overall histories, biographies, statistical analyses, etc. Each year offers one from each group that stands apart from the rest. As the 2006 Major League season dwindles down to a precious few days of postseason play, the following titles will help keep fans warm until spring training gets underway in 2007….&quot;</p>

<p><a href=”http://bookreporter.com/features/0610-baseball.asp”>Read the full review from Bookreporter.com</a>.</p>

Review — The Rise and Fall of the Press Box

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/rise.jpg”></a><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0′); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/rise_1.jpg”><img title=”Rise_1″ height=”175″ alt=”Rise_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/rise_1.jpg” width=”175″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a>Appeared on JanuaryMagazine.com in Nov. 2003</p>

<p>&quot;When Leonard Koppett died earlier this year, he left a tremendous void in the world of sports journalism. </p>

<p>&quot;Koppett, who was named to the writers’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992, was one of the great baseball writers of the postwar generation. His insight, his ability to break down information into meaningful and thought-provoking concepts, was appreciated by old fans and new….&quot;</p>

<p><a href=”http://www.januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/pressbox.html”>Read the full review from JanuaryMagazine.com</a>.</p>

Review: The Northern Game: Baseball the Canadian Way

Appeared on JanuaryMagazine.com, Summer 2005.

“For the second consecutive year, Maple Ridge’s own Larry Walker helped his St. Louis Cardinals vie for the National League pennant. Although Walker is in the twilight of his career, his legacy as one of Canada’s favorite baseball sons, having spent his salad days with the now-defunct Montreal Expos….”

Read the full review on JanuaryMagazine.com.

Author Profile: Art Shamsky

Mets favorite remembers the victories, and tensions, of a turbulent era

by Ron Kaplan

(This article appeared in the New Jersey Jewish News, Nov. 18, 2004)

Art Shamsky may not have been a Hall of Famer like Sandy Koufax, but for Jewish fans of the New York Mets during their “amazin’” World Championship season in 1969, his legacy is no less meaningful. With former Dodgers hero Gil Hodges at the helm and such talented players as Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Cleon Jones on the roster, the Mets eclipsed fans’ wildest expectations that season, winning 100 games and trouncing the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.

Shamsky, who split time between the outfield and first base, batted an even .300 for the regular season, with 14 home runs and 47 runs batted in in limited play. “We had a terrific clubhouse,” Shamsky fondly recalled, chatting with NJ Jewish News in preparation for a recent book-signing appearance at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair.

In a period marred by racial tensions, “there were never any black/white problems.” Nor did he ever have a problem because of his religion. People still approach him — parents and grandparents of today’s young fans — to share their memories of when he declined to play on Yom Kippur in 1969. “The funny thing was, the Mets won both ends of a double header” that day, he cracked.

Shamsky came to the Mets after the 1967 season in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds, where he showed some potential as a power hitter. But back problems kept him from fulfilling his promise and he was out of baseball by 1971. Nevertheless, his time spent with the Mets could be described, to paraphrase a classic line from the ’60s, as a short, strange (but exciting) trip.

Originally, Shamsky said, he was unhappy at being traded to the hapless Mets. In addition, the St. Louis-born ballplayer was daunted by his new surroundings. New York City, he said, “was really big. It was kind of intimidating.” Eventually, however, “I fell in love with the energy, got to know the city a bit. My life changed.” More than 30 years after his retirement, he still calls New York home.

Nowadays, Shamsky, 63, runs Bravo Properties in South Orange. In between buying and selling houses and catching up with old friends and teammates at memorabilia shows, he found time to reexamine that challenging era in his new book, The Magnificent Seasons, written with Barry Zeman (Thomas Dunne Books). During the same “fiscal” sport season (which spanned three years — 1968-70), NY fans enjoyed their finest era. The upstart Jets, with quarterback Joe Namath representing a younger, hipper generation, upset the old-school Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl. The Knicks, likewise considered underdogs, beat the mighty Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA title.

Then there were the Mets. Perennial loveable losers since their debut in 1962, before the championship ’69 season they had never finished higher than ninth place in the then 10-team National League. But not everything was all fun and games. New York was mired in financial and social problems, a fact that Shamsky engagingly recalls in his thoughtful book.

“I was caught up in my own world then as a ballplayer. I was amazed at all the things that I didn’t realize were going on,” such as teacher strikes, Vietnam War protests, and the killing of four student antiwar demonstrators at Kent State and its aftermath, he said. He recounted the hours spent at libraries poring through old newspapers and periodicals. “So much had taken place. And I was here — New York was the Mecca — but I didn’t realize the extent of what was going on.”

He was proud of what the New York teams meant to the city. “Men could walk on the moon, [but] there was never any [other] good news that brought the city or the country up a little bit.” The special feelings surrounding the Mets’ success, he believed, “made the little guy believe there was light at the end of the tunnel.”

Review: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Originally appeared in Elysian Fields Quarterly, 2003.

“One of the reasons baseball fans remain so steadfast in their devotion to the game is a sense of tradition. During interminable rain delays and constant pitching changes, broadcasters often wax nostalgic about constancy: for over a hundred years there have been nine men on the field, bases ninety feet apart, three strikes you’re out, and so forth. Perhaps it’s this comfort level that makes change so difficult. “This is the way things have been done and this is how we’re going to keep on doing them” seems to be the general mindset of proponents of the old school.”

Read the full freview from the Elysian Fields Quarterly Web site.

Review: The Only Game in Town: Baseball Stars of the 1930s and 1940s Talk About the Game They Loved

As former professional athletes move deeper and deeper into senior citizen status, it becomes increasingly interesting, akin to listening to our grandparents discuss what life was like “in the day.”

Baseball has always “enjoyed” a reputation that is almost a necessity, given its relatively slow pace. There is plenty of time to think, to talk. Many teams hire former players whose sole purpose seems to be to put current events into juxtaposition with the way things were when they were on the field. Some fans love it, some hate it.

Read the full review from Bookreporter.com

Read an excerpt from the Barnes and Noble website.

Review:The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth

While Barry Bonds and his home-run hitting brethren have followed the “better living through science” route to fame, Babe Ruth did things the old-fashioned way: booze, babes and BAM! It seems every time a contemporary baseballist threatens to bypass Ruth’s 714 home runs, someone comes out with a new book in an attempt to a) reacquaint the public with the Bambino (for the historically-minded of us); or b) try to make a quick buck (for the cynical). When Henry Aaron hit #715 in 1974, for example, four such volumes hit the stores in the space of a year.

Read the full review from Bookreporter.com.